Thomas Chipman
McRae (21 December 1851-02 June 1929) was a Democratic
member of the United States House of Representatives and was Governor of Arkansas from 1921 to 1925.
Thomas Chipman McRae
was born at Mount Holly in Union County Arkansas.
He attended Soule Business College and graduated with a law degree from Washington and Lee University.
In 1874, McRae was
appointed to the post of Election Commissioner. From 1877 to 1879, he
served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was a presidential
elector in 1880. In 1884, 1896, and 1900, he was a delegate
to the Democratic National Convention and served as president of the convention
twice. From 1888 to 1902 he was a member of the Democratic Congressional Committee.
From 1885 to 1903 McRae
served in the United States House of Representatives.
In 1917 and 1918, McRae
was president of the Arkansas Bar Association; in the latter year he took part in the Arkansas Constitutional Convention
In 1920 he was elected
Governor of Arkansas and served for two terms. The McRae administration
oversaw the establishment of the railroad commission and the
establishment of a tuberculosis sanitarium
for African-Americans
at a time when their survival rate was only 25%.
McRae was known as a
relative liberal on racial matters and attempted to take action against lynching.
In 1921 he ordered Mississippi County
sheriff's deputies to bring a black prisoner directly to Little Rock from Texas
to avoid local hostility in the community where he was charged. The
deputies ignored the order and the prisoner was killed when he arrived
in Mississippi County.
After the end of his
terms, McRae was appointed special Chief Justice of the Arkansas
Supreme Court. He was elected a life member of the Arkansas Democratic
State Convention in 1926, and engaged in the practice of law and
banking until his death in 1929.
Thomas McRae is buried
at the DeAnn Cemetery in Prescott, Arkansas. McRae was a cousin
of Thomas Banks Cabaniss, a U.S. Representative from Georgia.